[TomasUSMC]

AND if we keep wasting time in Iraq with these Vietnam rules of engagement and truces and ceasefires. If we keep wasting time going house to house worrying about the civilian casualties - THIS IS WHATS GOING TO HAPPEN TO OUR TROOPS IN IRAQ.

Sooner or later the enemy is going to get a hold of a WMD, they are going to put on American uniforms, steal a humvee and blow hell out of the "Green Zone" and take 5000 American lives.

The clock is one the enemies side, Fight or get out, there is no middle ground - unless you want to call it NAM.

[Dog]

"It was a major, major operation. It would have decapitated the government," King Abdullah told the San Francisco Chronicle. Jordanian officials estimated that the death count could have been as high as 20,000

They wanted to decapitate the government.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I guess you haven't figured out that one of the principle reasons to proceed slowly and cautiously is precisely because we don't know that there aren't significant quantities of this shiite IN some of these houses. Those cities were never searched (all the big ammo dumps have not even been searched.) I suspect there are houses in the middle of ordinary streets which are repositories for these things.

We certainly don't want a houseload of this to go up in the middle of a large concentration of our troops. Consider these operations live fire exercises which give our troops practice but are also deadly.